


Cosmic

by freedomdive



Category: Original Work
Genre: Agoraphobia, Anxiety Disorder, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-24
Updated: 2014-03-24
Packaged: 2018-01-16 19:45:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1359568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freedomdive/pseuds/freedomdive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To discover, you need to explore. But to explore, you need to find space.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cosmic

**Author's Note:**

> I'm one of those writers that just writes and writes, doesn't proofread a single time, and just takes a chance at showing others what I can do.
> 
> Meant to be a companion/sequel to Epoch (http://archiveofourown.org/works/1359220) by Lynne. I was so inspired by this that I just had to do a thing...

He wasn't very much a fan of nature. The whole "big, beautiful world" secretly terrified him. The specks of grass and flowers and little creatures of the Earth were something he could not deal with. And he wasn't quite sure why.

Perhaps because he was born in the deep, deepest city, only to be sheltered from life and its numerous complexities? Or was he just overreacting about how space -- and its wholeness -- was something too big to comprehend...?

His family had moved to find a better life. The move was too sudden and daunting on his psyche, and when he first saw the house -- the spacious, glittering night sky above, the dandelions dotting the front lawn, the fresh smell of cut grass filling his senses -- he almost vomited onto the pavement. It was too much. It was all just too much.

\- - -

Somehow encouraged by his miserable parents, he ventured out into the rest of the nearly deserted neighborhood on a cool autumn morning. It was eerily quiet, and the expanse of space -- of nature -- was so befuddling and horrifying to him that he nearly vomited again. Why, he thought, was he so afraid of impossibility? Of the unknown?

It was not long before he stopped before a particularly engrossing tree; orange and red leaves scattered themselves on the ground around it, and a slow breeze blew them about in an untidy fashion. That's how open space was... it was unpredictable and empty.

Another unpredictable and empty thing happened, when he heard rustling in the tree he had stopped before. His gaze slowly hovered upward to look into the tree, and he saw --

Was that -- oh no.

_No._

NO!

\- - -

He woke up on the front lawn of his own home and he had no idea how. There was too much space for thinking right now and he needed to get to bed right now. His mind flew into a panic at the simple act of waking up in the middle of an open lawn, and he ran into his house, and began to cry.

How pathetic! A boy, crying madly of his anxieties -- his pointless, merciless, cruel anxieties of the open space that seemed to swallow him whole, and the small details of that openness that could surely, piece by piece, rip him apart and dissect his soul.

He cried loudly for hours.

But when he stopped crying, he thought about what he saw in the tree.

There was no mistake: it was a girl who had hung herself. He had been too terrified to go outside and confirm that, but there was no mistake. She was swaying in the breeze. It was not beautiful or poetic. It was terrifying and heart-rending, and it made him sick to his stomach. How long had she been there? Where did her family live? Why did she do it?

He looked down at his hands, displeased at the fact that his anxiety led him to discover something tragic without having the courage left to pursue reasoning. He hated the entire expanse of space; not just on Earth, but in his mind, that left him empty and unable to think or feel. It was strange, but when he was enveloped in thoughts, closed in on himself, that's when he felt his best...

He wondered, then, how that girl felt. He wondered what she was feeling, what she thought of nature, and the expanse of its minute, exquisite details.

The boy took a deep breath.

\- - -

"There's a dead girl hanging from a tree about half a mile down," he said.

\- - -

Her name started with an R, but he couldn't be sure. He had so courageously discovered her tombstone, after delicately brushing his fingers over the stone that had faded with the beautiful grime of nature. Maybe she liked to draw. Or sing, or dance, or run. Or laugh.

There was so much space to think about it. But after recovering from the anxiety of that very unknown, he would perhaps let time weigh down on him, let him heal from the past of being swallowed whole.

He stood, letting a summer breeze blow through him. Perhaps keeping him away from space, of the wholeness, was just right. One day he could spread his wings and fly into the open sky gleefully.

But for now, he could blend into the unknown for a little while longer, and reflect on the mysterious.


End file.
